I was a third-year medical student in 1978 doing the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Where I went to medical school was very rural and we had a NICU outreach program for the smaller hospitals in the region that couldn’t adequately take care of premature infants. Depending on the gestational age of the infant and the clinical status, either an aircraft would go or an ambulance.
One afternoon, a hospital called for a transfer of a premature infant. The baby was several weeks premature, not a critically premature baby, but the referring hospital was not comfortable keeping the baby there. The referring hospital was about 2 hours from our facility. The decision was made to send a team with an incubator by ambulance. As the medical student, they thought it would be a good experience for me to go along.
We got on the road and got to the referring hospital at about four o’clock in the afternoon. The team assessed the baby, took over the case, settled the baby into the travel incubator, loaded the baby into the ambulance and started back to the medical school hospital. It was about 6:00 PM.
About 15 minutes into the ride back, we passed through an area with multiple fast-food restaurants. The resident in charge asked the intern and nurse what they thought about stopping at McDonald’s for burgers and fries. The intern and nurse said the baby was stable and it should be OK to stop for the 10 minutes or so it would take to get something to eat.
The resident, intern and I got out of the ambulance and went into the McDonald’s. It was busy because it was dinnertime. While we were waiting in line, the grandparents (who we had all met) walked into the McDonald’s and spotted us! They immediately came up to us and angrily asked the resident and intern what the heck was going on. The resident tried to reassure the grandparents that the baby was stable and was in no danger, but that didn’t assuage the grandparents.
We left and continued our ride back to the medical school hospital. By the time we got back, the grandparents had already called and complained to the hospital leadership. The resident and intern were called into the Chief of Pediatrics office the next morning. I wasn’t there, being the medical student and having no accountability. Needless to say, no one stopped on the way back from a baby pickup after that!